A switch appliance connected between two communicating network nodes may include a switch for forwarding packets to a tool. In some cases, the switch appliance may be an in-band device that participates in the network traffic production. In such cases, the switch appliance is a part of the network that communicates packets between the two nodes. Also, the tool may be an inline tool that is configured to monitor network traffic.
A new technique of processing packets using the switch appliance that is in communication with one or more inline tools is described herein.